me failing on last boss Za

Ok see my char and spec below if I'm honest I'm a casual player/raider so my priest knowledge isnt all it could be, been doin standard heroics and raiding without any problems or mana issues, trouble is I'm having big problems healing final boss in ZA, I either go ooom early and can't heal through later stage or someone dies at cat phase with me struggling to keep group up

Any hints or tips greatly appreciated as to how to heal the fight or perhaps I should regem back to spirit a little?

This fight gave me a huge amount of trouble too, but I eventually got it worked out and healed it successfully. I haven't done it on my priest yet, so this is from a paladin perspective, but it should be largely the same. The two biggest dangers I found were Claw Rage (when in lynx form, Daakara rushes a random player and performs a frenzy of attacks), and Flame Breath (when in dragonhawk form, Daakara breathes in front of him and leaves a trail of fire on the ground).

A lot of this comes down to execution from the rest of the party to not take too much avoidable damage. For Claw Rage, your tank should generally let the targeted player eat a few of the attacks before taunting so that the damage is split, then use his survival cooldowns to reduce his own damage taken from the rest of them. If he taunts too early, the tank damage will be nearly unhealable; if he taunts too late, the targeted player dies. Your own healing cooldowns are best saved for when this happens, too. In the dragonhawk phase, Flame Breath happens immediately after every Flame Whirl. He faces a random player and does a 1-second cast in the direction he's facing. The targeted player needs to move out of his way quickly, so it helps if everyone is near the boss but not in the same direction from him.

Other than these two things, it's a more or less straightforward (if brutal) fight. If Akil'zon is doable for you and this fight isn't, it probably comes down to the people in the party not avoiding damage properly. Supposedly the other combination of forms (bear and eagle) is easier, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

Surviving through Lynx without being on vapors for the last phase is something that comes with experience along with the coordinated effort of the group. Everyone who has some sort of survival spell should be using it on Lynx; deterence, evasion, bubble, etc. It shouldn't just be on the healer's shoulders.

As they said, the key on that boss isn't so much your performance as the performance of the tank and DPS. On the Lynx, the tank should taunt after a couple of the attacks go off or, alternatively, many DPS have some sort of survival CD (Ice Block, Deterence, etc.) and they should use that. If both the tank and the DPS player fail, its extremely difficult to heal through, and not really your fault if they die. In either case, I'd suggest popping DPS CDs and Heroism during Lynx, if you get it, since it is probably the hardest phase to heal and the best of the four for a straight DPS burn.

With the Dragon Hawk, again, most of the damage is avoidable, so everyone just needs to spread out and stay on their toes. The better you spread out, the less likely the fire walls or pillars will hit multiple people, so you'll have less damage to heal up.

I just wanna say that I as holy priest with decent gear (ilvl 359) had BIG TIME trouble healing last boss of ZA as well ;<
I struggled for a stupid amount of time, and felt like ripping my hair out in the end :s

During this fight we got Bear and Lynx, and the first 10 tries we couldn't get pass the bear phase cause everyone died, there was a massive AoE damage dealt to every player, and I just couldn't heal through it.
In the end we managed to do it, but i was close to rage quitting several times.

My boyfriend was sat next to me, he plays a holy paladin normally , but he gave it a try and he had problems as well.
Then yesterday we went to ZA together, me as shadow this time tho!, and him as holy paladin. And on the last fight, we got Bear and Lynx (coincidence much maybe?!?!), but we one shotted that boss, and people just took no damage what so ever, so clearly he was on full mana more or less when fight was over.

Now, i believe that fight was bugged for me that day, cause just because we play two different classes it shouldn't matter that much about damage taken, since healers have AoE heals and paladins don't really (maybe holy radiance and LoD - but still the CD of CoH and PoH is smaller then Holy Radiance and LoD/gaining Holy Power for LoD).

ok, ive only ever came across the combo of bear/hawk, so no real clue on the lynx!

bear phase, right obviously the ranged need to alternate the positioning so the charge hits a player without the 500% dmg increase debuff. i play disc and noticed with a PW:S on the target then they wouldnt die. it might work for holy, i have no real clue on how much a holy spec PW:S absorbs, as disc mine is about 30.5k

regarding the AoE on the bear phase, if everyone is close together mass dispell the roar (its classed as a magic). if not jsut dispell manually (if you have decursive active its way easier than using a grid/healbot).

either way, the party dmg on the bear phase is completely avoidable, pre shield the person about to eat the charge and you only have to concentrate on the tank. personally as disc i end the fight on almost full mana (with the use of all CDs including fiend) i have decent gear and 4pc bonus, but on that fight the gear isnt a massive sticking point, jsut execution

As they said, the key on that boss isn't so much your performance as the performance of the tank and DPS. On the Lynx, the tank should taunt after a couple of the attacks go off or, alternatively, many DPS have some sort of survival CD (Ice Block, Deterence, etc.) and they should use that. If both the tank and the DPS player fail, its extremely difficult to heal through, and not really your fault if they die. In either case, I'd suggest popping DPS CDs and Heroism during Lynx, if you get it, since it is probably the hardest phase to heal and the best of the four for a straight DPS burn.

With the Dragon Hawk, again, most of the damage is avoidable, so everyone just needs to spread out and stay on their toes. The better you spread out, the less likely the fire walls or pillars will hit multiple people, so you'll have less damage to heal up.

Popping iceblock or other cds that gets the target of you might not be such a good idea as it seems, because it will make the lynx attack the tank. When you ice block to soon the tank will have to eat full stacks, therefor the iceblock needs to be timed, like the tanks taunt. Therefor this is only a solution if the tank is to slow with taunting.

Ok see my char and spec below if I'm honest I'm a casual player/raider so my priest knowledge isnt all it could be, been doin standard heroics and raiding without any problems or mana issues, trouble is I'm having big problems healing final boss in ZA, I either go ooom early and can't heal through later stage or someone dies at cat phase with me struggling to keep group up

Any hints or tips greatly appreciated as to how to heal the fight or perhaps I should regem back to spirit a little?

Thanks in advance

Ok I looked through and managed to find your problem.

First one is that you play Holy Priest. Don´t understand me wrong, Holy Priests are insanely strong but on that fight it´s just unusable. Your healing at all is smaller of an Disc Priest. Why? Easy sayed as Disc you will just Spam GH ^^ it´s realy easyer than anything else^^ for the claw phase, I personally ranned into some groups where the people didn´t do anything about that^^ in that you can shield them and grab em. I assume the dmg of the claw thing is crazy high, but with a shield and a crit GH you will asume that they will live afterwards, why? Because shield is about 25k and a GH Crit is about 45k + 20% of that as AEGIS proc ; ) Just to say, some DD´s have defensevly abilitys too :P Learn to use it yet -.- Iceblock or Bubble or anything for this phase because the dmg is sometimes rly unhealable :P

Ok see my char and spec below if I'm honest I'm a casual player/raider so my priest knowledge isnt all it could be, been doin standard heroics and raiding without any problems or mana issues, trouble is I'm having big problems healing final boss in ZA, I either go ooom early and can't heal through later stage or someone dies at cat phase with me struggling to keep group up

Any hints or tips greatly appreciated as to how to heal the fight or perhaps I should regem back to spirit a little?

Ok first off your Geared/Gemmed/Reforged wrong. You have an over abundance of haste and a heavy lack of mastery. Haste and Crit should both be reforged to mastery if said piece has spirit and haste or crit. Spirit Mastery leave as is. im seeing you at 3k Spirit on your armory, tbh i heal 25m heroic w/ 3k spirit and get off fine w/ 2800ish in heroics spamming flash heal. The hot left ticking from mastery is amazing. Regardless the tank needs to taunt after the Lynx frenzy charge nonsense. Dont mind some of my odd haste crap lol some pieces are doubling for shadow as atm i been dpsing alot of fights.

Ok first off your Geared/Gemmed/Reforged wrong. You have an over abundance of haste and a heavy lack of mastery. Haste and Crit should both be reforged to mastery if said piece has spirit and haste or crit. Spirit Mastery leave as is. im seeing you at 3k Spirit on your armory, tbh i heal 25m heroic w/ 3k spirit and get off fine w/ 2800ish in heroics spamming flash heal. The hot left ticking from mastery is amazing. Regardless the tank needs to taunt after the Lynx frenzy charge nonsense. Dont mind some of my odd haste crap lol some pieces are doubling for shadow as atm i been dpsing alot of fights.

Stop recommending MST>HST and overusing FH to people having trouble with 5 mans. 25man HC and 5man/10man/10man HC are NOT the same thing.

OnT: You have lots of errors, 6 different gems should be your first sign of this. You need to go read up on holy priests a bit, if you want some help with gemming/reforging post in the "Rate the holy priest above you thread" found in the stickies.

I'd say you should definitely give Disc a try in 5 mans. On my alt priest I have both specs, and while holy got it's strengths, disc just got more tools available to get you trough shitty situations. In fact I felt pretty gimped as holy in 5 mans compared to disc

In 5 mans it's often about heavy tank damage, and that's exactly where disc shines (providing you took SoS and the other talents useful for that).

Stop recommending MST>HST and overusing FH to people having trouble with 5 mans. 25man HC and 5man/10man/10man HC are NOT the same thing.

OnT: You have lots of errors, 6 different gems should be your first sign of this. You need to go read up on holy priests a bit, if you want some help with gemming/reforging post in the "Rate the holy priest above you thread" found in the stickies.

your apparently moronic and have no idea wtf ur talking about, "Dont mind some of my odd haste crap lol some pieces are doubling for shadow as atm i been dpsing alot of fights." but you cant read. So ill ignore a fail priest who hasnt healed anything ever. Haste is trash your to slow to read EJ who says u dont want to go past 12.5% and thats only if ur spamming renew which you shouldnt be PoM and CoH will carry 99% of your healing on 5man groups if your sp is over 7k which it should be quite easily. INT>MASTERY>Spirit are your 3 main goals. Renew destroys your Mastery hot by turning it into 53hp heals. So pls you arrogant moron who has no idea about wtf he is talking about stop speaking.

your apparently moronic and have no idea wtf ur talking about,"Dont mind some of my odd haste crap lol some pieces are doubling for shadow as atm i been dpsing alot of fights." but you cant read. So ill ignore a fail priest who hasnt healed anything ever. Haste is trash your to slow to read EJ who says u dont want to go past 12.5% and thats only if ur spamming renew which you shouldnt be PoM and CoH will carry 99% of your healing on 5man groups if your sp is over 7k which it should be quite easily. INT>MASTERY>Spirit are your 3 main goals. Renew destroys your Mastery hot by turning it into 53hp heals. So pls you arrogant moron who has no idea about wtf he is talking about stop speaking.

When the arguments dry out, the insults begin. If you can't argue like a normal person, maybe you shouldn't try.

Speaking of not being able to read, I never mentioned your gear. I've healed enough to know how to play, I do find it admirable that some nice fellows are boosting you in heroics, it's quite nice to be honest. I love how you don't use renew AND think HST is crap. PoM and CoH being 99% of your healing in 5 mans? Are you serious or trolling because I'm starting to doubt your seriousness.

Renew does not overwrite EoL. Telling players having trouble in 5mans to use PoM/CoH only or to overuse FH is not good advice.

Researching and copying the top 25man progressing priests are not the same thing, you know it doesn't work like that do you? 5man, 10man and 25man are not the same thing, you know it doesn't work like that do you?

Haste is crap period unless you can get a monumental amount. Tbh for healing on sinestra which yes i have done not killed her yet the Mana is more of what helps healers we could easily get by w/o the haste. Now i doubt we would beat the soft enrage w/o that haste buff but wrack and firebreath damage could be healed aslong as we have infinite mana. Some of the Top top end priests will go for haste because they have hit around 20-21 mastery and can afford to have haste but really its not near as valuable as mastery especially in fights like sinestra where dmg is going to be fairly constant. This is simply because the Echo of Light hot will do more healing that renew, aswell as its Free where as renew on 10-15 ppl is super super costly 2 prayers will echo 10 ppl np and be more cost effective and do rougly the same healing as a renew sometimes more depending on your crits etc. However simply put in a 5man where obviously u donot have mana tide and usually no good innervate being cost effective is going to help you at lower levels of gear.

Some people will argue more regen problem being if you forsake intellect for regen then u need more heals where in lies the mastery has a direct through put to healing as haste and spirit donot. Haste will allow sure more casts but if your cast's lack spell power there smaller requiring more and if your spirit is stacked>int or mastery then u reach the same end more casts. Personally id aim for the 7.5% haste are just so that 5% buff in raids push's out the extra tick on your situational renewing, but id most assuredly have more mastery than haste. This comes from actual in game play not just reading and assuming.

You may ask why mastery tho instead of direct healing. Well in a 5m i see it as well the group may take a certain amount of dmg periodically or maybe just a single burst of dmg. 1 circle or prayer maybe even both will assuredly prevent death to the dps and yourself if they and you are not putting yourself in a situation of certain death however you may find moments when the tank is behind on health at this point a quick group heal with a nice HOT at the end will likely cover you for a global or two allowing a push on the tanks health.

Now i will say yes my spell power alone push's out a much larger heal than a blue geared fresh 85 but if even i can find moments where the tank is behind and the group is damaged then obviously a blue geared person will be much more stressed on mana and feeling the heat on his or her neck. This makes haste wildly inefficient simply Mana cost does not decrease i just have a larger pool this is another reason why top geared priest's can push haste and why a blueby shouldnt.
2 Prayers on 80k mana area is an ouch for sure aswell as 5 renews being bad.

IMO aswell as alot of other ppls Spirit/mastery should be on every single piece of loot you equip obviously intellect will be on these pieces, so its not like u need to look for that lol.

p.s. Haste wouldnt be bad for renewing on sinestra as the buff isnt haste rating and just a cast buff so your renew keeps no effect from it.

Any hints or tips greatly appreciated as to how to heal the fight or perhaps I should regem back to spirit a little?

I got that combination last night and had some difficulties with it myself. The group I was with didn't really understand the mechanics and made poor use of my lightwell, which made it a bit more difficult than was actually necessary. On top of this, I had two melee and a ranged who seemed to be getting hit by the fire every time in phase two.

So, after a few wipes, I figured out how to keep people up during the Claw Rage.

First of all, Daakar will target the person he's going to Claw Rage ~3 seconds before he leaps to them. You need to take advantage of this information to shift your focus to that target. What worked for me was maintaining a serendipity stack during this phase, immediately tossing a renew on that target (or PoM if not on CD) followed by HW:S immediately as they begin to take damage, followed by a hasted gheal. This was able to keep everyone up through the first half of the Rage or so, after which the tank would take it back.

When it targeted me, I'd just use two globals to pre-heal (PoM if off cooldown>Renew>Shield) and save Fade for taunt redundancy. You can also game Guardian Spirit for one of the Rages.

I would imagine this would be easier as disc, bubble/bt-penance/gheal combo is pretty win for burst.

All in all, I think these new heroics do favor mastery (for holy), as I've been relatively mana constrained without a replenishment class and many of the fights are favorable to EoL. I'm thinking about reforging back into Mastery and dropping my renew talents in favor of Darkness / desperate prayer. I never heal in raid anyway (MS shadow) - so it doesn't really matter besides enjoying the new heroics while they're still new.